


The Jacket

by orphan_account



Category: Sing (2016)
Genre: Boy NEEDED a new jacket- that old one hardly fit him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 00:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9354620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Can you fix this?”“Johnny-”“Yes or no; can you fix this?”Rosita said nothing. She gently took the jacket from Johnny, and as she ran her thumb over the frayed leather, he felt as though the flat edge of a knife was being run up his spine.Her face said everything.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For Cal, who requested Johnny in winter wear. I hope you like it!

       Winter lay draped across suburbia, lounging like a woman in patterned silk. The sun, barely risen, drew out of the clouds the very beginnings of a livid dawn. A crystalline sharpness permeated everything, leaving it’s fingerprints on the glass, the air, the tops of mailboxes and parked cars. There was no sound here, just the gentle breathing silence.

       Which is why Johnny winced as he pushed the ice scraper across the front windshield of his truck.

       The sound echoed up and down the street, and Johnny felt it grate against his bones as he pushed the scraper again and again. Almost as if in retaliation the ice stayed, the top ripple coming off in chunks but the smooth underside still remaining firmly affixed to the glass. Johnny swore, balling his right hand into a fist in the cuff of his coat before pounding on the film. The top layer crumbled away, but still that thin sheet remained.

       “Something wrong?”

       Johnny turned to find Rosita’s anxious face peering from around the front door. Sighing, he gestured with the ice scraper towards the truck.   

       Her tutting echoed across the expanse of walkway, “Put your defrost on and come back inside, there’s no use fighting that.”

       “I’m gonna be late for classes.”

       “I’m sure your professor will understand, now do what I said and get back in here, please.”

       With a huff, Johnny made his way across the slick asphalt to the driver side door. The lock, frozen stiff, relented only after he threw his shoulder into the door and jiggled the key. It was only after he had clambered in to turn the car on that he noticed the leather of his sleeve had been split wide open.

       His heart dropped out of his chest.

       Throwing the defrost switch on and slamming the door behind him, he skidded up the walkway to the front door where Rosita still waited. She opened the door for him as he all but tumbled across the welcome mat.

       “Rosita- I broke it-fix-please.”

       “What, the car? Honey-”

       “Not the car,” he felt like he couldn’t breathe, “Not the car,” and as gently as he could, Johnny took off his jacket.

       In the light of the hallway, the full damage seemed much worse. From the cuff to mid forearm, there was a split in the leather just right of the seam. Johnny felt his hands start to shake as he held it out for Rosita’s inspection.

       “Can you fix this?”

       “Johnny-”

       “Yes or no; can you fix this?”

       Rosita said nothing. She gently took the jacket from Johnny, and as she ran her thumb over the frayed leather, he felt as though the flat edge of a knife was being run up his spine.

       Her face said everything.

       He started to shiver, a sort of numb coldness settling in his bones that the heat of the house could not help him fight. With heavy feet, Johnny walked back toward the kitchen to all but collapse in a chair at the table. He ran his hands down his face and let out a shaking breath. From behind him, he could hear the near silent footsteps of Rosita as she came to sit next to him.

       They sat there in the quiet, listening to the distant ticking of the living room clock and the sound of the truck running outside. After a time, Rosita very softly, spoke up.

       “These things happen, the jacket was old.”

       Johnny just shook his head, shutting his eyes. He didn’t want to see the face she was making.

       “You didn’t do anything wrong, Johnny.”

       “I wasn’t careful. I didn’t take care of it.”

       “Honey, you took better care of that thing than you did yourself most days.”

       “But-,”he felt her place a hand on his knee and his mouth snapped shut.

       “It was old when Pete gave it to you. You realize this, right?”

       Johnny only shook his head again, breathing heavily through his nose and clenching his teeth.

       The silence stretched between them again, and after a time, Rosita took her hand off his knee. He heard her get up and walk back down the hall, and it was only when he was sure that she had left that he allowed himself to cry. His chest rattled with quiet sobs, and no matter how often he wiped his eyes the tears just kept coming. Johnny’s fingers ran up and down the length of the torn sleeve, feeling the old leather and remembering when it wasn’t quite so old, when it had smelled of his father’s cologne, when it had been wrapped in tissue paper with a card that congratulated him on turning from a boy into a man.      

       He had ruined it.

       He had ruined everything.

       It was not until he felt a light touch upon his shoulder that he realized he was not alone. Looking up, he saw Rosita standing at his shoulder and quickly wiped his eyes.

       “’M sorry, I know it’s stupid.”

       “It’s not stupid.”

       “It’s just-.”

       “I know,” she whispered, running her hand across his shoulders, “I know, and we can’t replace that, no matter how much we may want to, but…”

       In her other hand, she lifted a cardboard box and placed it on the table next to the jacket.

       Johnny stared at it, blinking, before looking back to Rosita. She smiled.

       “I wasn’t kidding when I said your fathers knew that jacket was getting old. They wanted to get you something nice on account of you starting college. They wanted to be there for when you opened it at Christmas but,” she gestured, “well, now’s a better time, I think.”

       Slowly, Johnny pulled the package closer to him. Looking back at Rosita just to make sure this was okay, he opened the box.

       There, unwrapped and with the tags still attached, was a jacket.

       “Ah!” with lightning speed, Rosita removed the tags, “I knew I was forgetting something.”

       Johnny just stared, wide eyed and slack jawed. Never in his life had he seen leather like that, the kind of leather that sparkled like wet paint and smelled of autumn leaves. Reaching to touch it, he was amazed by just how supple it was, bending and moving with his fingertips so gently and smoothly. Slowly, he stood, taking the jacket out of the box with him until it hung at full length in front of him.

       “Are you going to try it on?”

       Turning to look at her he found the smile in her voice also plane on her face. It was an infectious thing, and Johnny could feel his own face splitting into a grin. Quickly undoing the front, he pulled it around himself, relishing in the feeling of his arms as they slipped through the tunnel of cool, soft fleece lining. The jacket sat just right on his shoulders, the seam being exactly where it needed to be. He couldn’t help but run his hands across it before turning to zipper and buckle the front. Turning to face Rosita, he held his arms out.

       He wanted to ask how he looked, but his chest was too full of emotions to put any one into words. Johnny just stood there, arms out and grinning.

       “Oh my goodness, it’s perfect,” Rosita laughed, “We sat with that catalog for almost an hour trying to figure- and it’s perfect! Stan said you’d look just like David Bowow in this. Just wait until he sees how right he is. Oh! Wait wait- Okay, if you have the jacket I can also give you this.”

       As Rosita ran back down the hallway and up the stairs, Johnny turned and looked at his reflection in the kitchen window.  The wide collar with its two points were snapped down to the shoulders and chest. With the neck open like that, he could how the dark fleece seemed to bloom from the jacket and around his neck, settling there like a dark snow. And the silver flecks of metal, they were everywhere; in the zipper down the front, the zippers on the cuffs and across not two but three sets of pockets, in the snaps on the collar, in the loops of the belt across the front. They were shiny against the pitch blackness of the rest of the jacket that they almost looked like stars against a dark sky. 

       He almost couldn’t recognize himself, not in a jacket like this.

       And yet, he thought, brushing his hands down the front, it felt perfectly right.

       Johnny heard Rosita coming down the stairs, and he turned just as she entered the kitchen.

       “This one’s just from me,” she explained, throwing something yellow over his head, “With you getting a new jacket and all, I thought, well, you have to accessorize it. Barry agreed with me on that. And why are you looking at yourself in the window, come over by the door.”

       Johnny allowed himself to be steered to the mirror just to the right of the front door, where he saw that what Rosita had thrown over his neck was, in fact, a scarf.

       “They call them infinity scarves,” she explained, “I thought you might find that easier to deal with, so that the ends don’t get in your way. Plus, a young man like yourself deserves to dress in style, so I got the tartan one. I thought the yellow would bring out your eyes.”

       Johnny didn’t realize he was crying until Rosita stepped forward to wipe the tears.

       “We figured you’d like it,” she smiled.

       He hugged her then, laughing and crying all at the same time, unable to stop himself and not caring enough to try. Johnny felt her hands pat his back as she held him, the two of them swaying side to side as he whispered, “I love it, I absolutely love it.”


End file.
